Remote
by tankgirly
Summary: A lifetime apart, two old comrades reprise their first meeting.


**Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic- The Sith Lord**

_**Remote**_

**Dxun, Onderon Systems, Japrael Sector, Inner Rim, Final year of the Mandalorian Wars**

_"Entering the atmosphere, sir!"_

_BONG~. The sky above Dxun was as bright as day: lightening clashed through the fog and mist of heavy rain. Large explosions and thunders caused the air vibrated and the ground quaked. _

"_Switch to manual pilot!"_

_BONG~, GABONG~. More explosions from the jungles below. The shockwaves almost knocked them off air. Several Plasmas fired past them and hit the nearby drop ships._

"_Ready to discharge! FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!"_

_BONG~_

"_Red Squadron down two! We're having severe causalities, sir!"_

"_Damn! SPREAD OUT! Secure the surrounding area!"_

"_Drexl, three o'clock! WATCH OUT!"_

"_Medic! I need Medic droid right here!"_

"_Bao-Dur? Bao-Dur, keep your heads down and stay alert. We need to move closer to the Mandalorian's energy shield generator so we can shot it down manually. Don't lose your blaster, we—"_

_Bao-Dur turned his head away, shot his eye tightly and cursed vigorously under his breath. _

_No, this is not good. Not good at all._

_Squadrons had only just landed, and within minutes, they were surrounding by the vicious jungles and ferocious beast, not to mention the stealthed Mandalorians lurking around. Two third of his teammates were killed or seriously injured, and they haven't even moved anywhere near the Mandalorian fortress._

_Suddenly sensed there was something near by, the Zabrak technician withdrew his stagger and waved towards the direction. Followed by a thudding noise and a low grunt, a Mandarlorian appeared in front of him and fell onto the ground._

_A remote rose from the drop ship a few meters away. It made a sequence of beeping sound and quickly glided towards Bao-Dur. For the first time since the landing, his face lightened up a little. _

"_I thought I told you do stay with Tien Tubb on the orbit. It only takes a mere few hours to disable the generator." He looped the dead Mandarlorian body, picked up the stealth generator belt and blaster rifle, and carefully examined them before moving on. _

_The remote made a few beeping sound, seemed trying to argue with its maker._

"_No, I don't need the GPS on this moon…I don't think anyone have one for this damn place anyway. Not even the Mandarlorians." They proceed into the jungle, shooting and dashing from the attacks upon them._

"_Beep-Beep."_

"_Mines? Please, what am I? One of those Boma thingy? I am a Zabrak, buddy. I think I can handle these pretty well. Hey— " Two more Boma jumped out from a nearby tree. Bao-Dur fired the new acclaim blaster rifle at them, before closely inspected the still smoking weapon and exclaimed: "Good stuff!"_

"_Boo…." The remote sounded like a wounded animal._

"_..You are going to follow me anyway." Bao-Dur sighed after climbed up a rather steep hill: "Stay if you want. But it's not going to be a picnic, let me tell you."_

_They proceed another three kilometers before arriving at what seemed to be the edge of the jungle. In front of them was a vast open plain that leaded to the Mandalorian fortress. No one guarded there. There were several troops hidden among the bushes, and no one seemed to be moving forwards. Bao-Dur frowned and quietly moving neared a Republic soldier._

"_What's going on? Why is everybody stopping?" He asked. _

_Before the soldier replied. The remote made a few low frequencies beeping sound. He immediately understood._

"_Mines." His eyes narrowed._

_A field full of mines._

"_Those Mandalorians surely are vicious and outrageous. With a field like that, even this little remote won't be able to pass without setting one ore two off." The soldier muttered in a very disgruntle tone._

"_So what you guys planning to do, squaring around and see if you can deactivate them with your fizzog?" Bao-Dur was astonished._

"_No, the General is coming. Order from the above to hold everything until further notice."_

_General?_

_Goodness, this must be serious._

"_Was supposed to be leading this assault." Another soldier whispered: "Admiral Revan assigned her to another task three days prior to this and it took a little longer than expected for her to finish. Malak is overseeing this for the time being."_

"_That kind of explaining why we all ending up crawling here in the mud!" Said both soldiers in unison._

"_Yeah, tell me about it." The soldier a little further away heard their conversation and joined it: "Typical Malak, not much research, just rush in!"_

_Another lightening clashing down from the sky, thunders and explosions echoed in the distance, the rain suddenly changed from drizzle to howling. _

"_Oh, great." The soldier rolled his eyes: "More rain, this is just bloody wonderful!"_

_Lightening clashed down again and hit the near by tree, sending several Republic infantry diving for cover. When they finally stumbled back to their feet, they noticed they were suddenly surrounded by armored Neo-Crusaders. It took a few split seconds before they realized what was going on and what to do, by then half of the fighters were down._

_Bao-Dur killed off two Mandalorians and engaged in a duel with the more difficult Shock Troopers when another Neo-Crusaders appeared behind him. There was no spare moment to react and the remote was already busy fending off other Mandalorians. He shut his eye tightly, ready to be sliced in half. Instead he heard some humming sound that wiped past his years, followed by some grunts indicating the Neo-Crusader had been dealt with._

_He opened his eye and saw a cropped blond hair woman stood in front of him, wielding a sapphire lightsaberstaff and sending Force Push towards the remaining Mandalorians._

_A Jedi._

"_General!"_

"_General Sacul!" Several voices chorused, all sounded intensively relieved to see the Jedi Master._

_The Jedi turned around. Bao-Dur saw a pair of piercing blue eyes looked right into his. For a moment, he almost forgot to breath._

"_Are you alright?" She reached out her hand._

_

* * *

  
_

**Garage, **_**Ebon Hawk**_**, Dxun, Onderon Systems, Japrael Sector, Inner Rim,  
**

Bao-Dur withdrew his head out from the fuse box. He rose his hand to wipe the sweat broken our on his forehead.

"That should do." He sighed, and straightened up his back.

He toyed the sonic screwdriver for a few seconds, tossing it up and down, while waiting for the generator to boost. Using the spare part salvaged from the crashed ships in the jungle, he was able to replace the seriously worn generator that have been on and off, causing some troubles and serious outroars, since their last landing. They were quite fortunate; this one was more updated and miraculously suffered very little scratch. After returning from the Mandalorian campsite, he spent the entire afternoon to replace the new one.

The generator made a few bleeping sound and came back to life. The Zabrak engineer was relief.

"Marvelous!" He let out a whistle, winked at the nearby remote before noted the progress entry log on his datapad.

The thunder cracked over his head. Bao-Dur's finger stopped short on the touch screen. He looked at the ceiling and murmured: "…Just like the old times…"

Something outside the window caught his eyes. Curious, he drew nearer the pane to have a clearer look. There was a blur glowing light moving up and down in the pouring rain. Frowning, BaoDur put hands above his eyes to get the better view.

It was General.

He couldn't believe it. She and the rest of the crew just returned from the Mandalore's Camp earlier, looked absolutely exhausted. According to Atton, she spent almost the entire morning dueling with almost half of the duelist there. Those Mandalorians had requested all kinds of things, like no armors, no med packs, no Force tricks, or even no lightsabers. She accepted without any objection and entered the battle circle every time without even blinking her eyes.

Bao-Dur put down his sonic screwdriver and the datapad. He left the ship and walked towards Anna Sacul.

Anna was drenched. Her robe was heavily trapped along her body; her blond hair was fastened to her porcelain face. Seemed unfazed, she continued to preform her routine. Her expression was frowned from the intense concentration. The lightsaberstaff in her hands seemed having a life of its own, gliding through the rain in such a flawless rhythm. The hissing cadence sounded soothing.

Bao-Dur stood the edge of her practice area, watching her silhouette beautifully collaborate with the saberstaff, for a while in silence. Having just been shown the way of the Force by her less than a month ago, he had no way of telling what kind of form she's been practicing. However, the Force he sensed from her was so overwhelmingly strong, he almost couldn't breath.

Suddenly, Anna's arms heaved in the direction of Bao-Dur, seemed throwing an item towards him. He seized it intuitively. Look closely, he realized the Jedi had detached her saberstaff into two, letting him used one of them. Somehow she knew he had only just started constructing his own recently. The progress was slow, as he spent most of the time maintaining and upgrading the _Ebon Hawk_. He activated the weapon. The blue glow hissed and gently vibrating in his hand.

"Shii-Cho, _The Way Of the Sarlacc_," Anna's voice echoed through the Force, she now raised her lightsaber at shoulder level, quickly demonstrated the basic maneuvers and skills of the combat routine. Understood immediately what he was suppose to do, he quickly waved his half of the saberstaff and copied her cadence.

They began slow. Once Bao-Dur mastered the form, their movement mirrored each other and started to progress faster and faster. The thunderstorm no longer mattered. Soon their bodies become blurred, only the blue glow whishing in unison.

Then Anna's maneuver changed abruptly. She started charging her lightsaber towards the Zabrak technician. Bao-Dur fended them off. She flipped backwards and attacked again. Again he sensed them and waved his lightsaber to counter her strike. Their body shifted even faster, moving from one side of the area to the other, occasionally bouncing on and off the cliff and trees. Their parrying practice soon drew attention from the rest of the crew, all of them gradually gathered around them and watched two blur images zooming about in high speed.

"Someone just hit him with a blaster?" Atton was astonished: "Goodness, he sure picked them up really quickly."

"And this is just Form one," Mical crossed her arms, tried to follow the parrying: "Hmm…."

"Indeed." Kreia nodded: "She seemed had the ability to spot those strong in Force. However, there are some exceptions…" She caste a side glance at Atton.

"Oi!"

"Still stirred easily," Kreia chuckled, her eyes were back to the dueling duo.

"…Let me know how it turns out." Mira sprung around and headed back to the ship.

The pair continued their combat way into the midnight. At one stage Anna's rhythm began to slow down. Soon her lightsaber tactic switched from attack to defense. Bao-Dur slowly advanced his lightsaber and gradually pushed the Jedi towards the corner. Finally, the Jedi Guardian in training knocked the hilt off her hand, sent it flying and thrust into a nearby tree.

Both of them were panting heavily. For a while, they simply stared at each other, none of them uttered any word.

Then, Bao-Dur gathered on his feet, walked towards the cropped blond hair General.

"Are you alright?" He reached out his hand.


End file.
